This past weekend I had the pleasure of conducting auditions for our summer musical, Music Man.  We had over 40 auditionees bursting with talent.  Each night we  listened to each auditionees prepared song and then had readings from the script.

Saturday afternoon, after the open auditions, callbacks were scheduled and about 20 performers participated in what one person said was, “one of the most strenuous auditions they have ever had.”  That wasn’t my intention but I am happy that we were able to challenge the performers to reach a little deeper.

I worked on the casting a little bit Saturday night and had about 16 parts filled before I called it a night.  This is a very exciting and interesting journey for a director.  I look at various combinations of talent, appearance, and characterization to cast each part.  Sometimes someone could play many roles but just really fits into a certain part when the rest of the cast starts to materialize.  Many times if I am having a hard time deciding who should play a certain role I will start casting all of the characters that will interact with that character and then things start to fall into place.

I am very excited to start rehearsing with this amazing cast and working to create a wonderful show filled with the magic of theatre over the next couple of months.  Each show is a different journey that we take together as a cast family.  Each show represents a thrilling moment in time that will never be the same again.  A human experience can be found in even the most fantastical theatrical performance.  That is what theatre really is to me.  A true experience that we get to experience together as performers and that the audience is able to engage in and be a part of.  I am looking forward to sharing the stories of River City, Iowa with each of you this summer.

Cody Carlton

"All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists."
Stephen Sondheim 

We are so excited for our friend and CharACTers Photographer, Brooke Bikneris!! She was recently asked to have some of her photos published in the national photography magazine, Lemonade and Lenses! You normally have to submit your photos to be considered for this magazine, but Brooke was ASKED to have her photos published! That is definitely a huge accomplishment! 

Brooke is an amazing photographer that has been working with CharACTers for the past 2 years. She began photographing the Dreamcatchers Performance Troupe in the fall of 2010 and we were already impressed with her work! In early 2011, CharACTers wanted to reach out to local photographers who were still building a portfolio and work with them to photograph the show as well as sell Photo Discs to the cast members. Having already booked photographers for Hairspray and Ragtime, we approached Brooke about photographing the upcoming show, The Aristocats KIDS in October. With two of her daughters participating in the show, Brooke jumped at the chance to shoot the talented and adorable cast! After successfully shooting 3 shows that year, Brooke was asked to be the Official CharACTers Photographer. Of course, she said yes! And we're so thankful that she did! Brooke and her children are a major part of the CharACTers family. Two of her daughters, Olivia and Ava, or "Big" and "Middle" as Brooke refers to them, are team members of the Dreamcatchers Performance Troupe and are heavily involved with the productions. Brooke works closely with each cast member and makes the entire "picture taking" experience a comfortable and enjoyable time for everyone! We love Brooke very much, not only as a photographer, but as a friend. We hope that even if she continues to grow her business and gain even more success, she will not forget us! :)

So, you were browsing around the website and stumbled over to the Photo Gallery button on the homepage. Low and behold, the button didn't work! You clicked and clicked and clicked, but still  no success! If you're like me, you probably yelled at your computer screen and had the slight urge to toss the whole thing out the window. Or, you might have just calmly said to yourself, "I'll try again later" and went on browsing. Either way, the Photo Gallery button didn't work. Well, we are currently in the process of working on our gallery. You see, it's just not as simple as uploading picture after picture. We have to go through hundreds of great photos from each show, choose the best ones, watermark them, and THEN upload them to the server for your viewing pleasure. Uploading can even up many hours, depending on how many photos there are. And why watermark? Over the past 5 years, we've worked with some great photographers for many of our shows. We now have a full time staff photographer, Brooke Bikneris, who works very hard on every single show to make sure we get the highest quality photos. Brooke, and the other photogs  we've previously worked  with, have made it possible to purchase Photo Discs from the shows for a reasonable price. We feel it just wouldn't be fair to Brooke and the other photogs to showcase their work, only for someone to "save image as" to their own computer. So when the Photo Gallery is finally up and running, please do not steal the photos. If you would like to purchase a disc of the show, email us and we will notify the appropriate photographer and get you a disc!

Welcome to the all new BLOG section of the CharACTers Website! We're so excited about all of the changes coming to CharACTers and we wanted to create a place to share it all with you! Here, you will often read posts from our Directors, Cast Members, Volunteers, and maybe even some audience members! Have you ever wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes at CharACTers? What is the lead actor or actress thinking as they're preparing for their upcoming role. How hard was it to build that ship AND make it sink?? Now, you'll be able read all about the tears, sweat, and drama that makes up our lovely theatre family. So please, sit back and take a look around. There's lots of updates and even more to come! Check back often for more fun!!

Faith, Trust, and SANTANA dust!